Publishers

Document: EU countries mull media-friendly reboot to protect democracy

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The European Commission is working on a wide-ranging initiative to protect democracy in the bloc.

Sanctioned Russian media still partnered with Facebook

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Sanctioned pro-Russian media are still part of Facebook’s advertising revenue program, new research out Friday showed. Russian state broadcasters, including Rossiya Segodnya — the organization that oversees both RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik — were sanctioned following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and barred from broadcasting inside the EU. Key figures in its operations […]

Sanctioned Russian media still partnered with Facebook

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Sanctioned pro-Russian media are still part of Facebook’s advertising revenue program, new research out Friday showed. Russian state broadcasters, including Rossiya Segodnya — the organization that oversees both RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik — were sanctioned following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and barred from broadcasting inside the EU. Key figures in its operations […]

Anti-Google groups petition EU to break up tech giant

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Two separate petitions, accompanied by a protest, landed on DG Competition’s doorstep this morning.

How AI and copyright turned into a political nightmare for UK Labour

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LONDON — It was never meant to be this hard. In the wake of Labour’s decisive election victory in July, ministers in the party’s tech team were determined to grip an issue they felt the previous Conservative government had failed to address: how to protect copyright holders from artificial intelligence companies’ voracious appetite for content […]

EU urged to act over Hungary’s plans to ‘effectively outlaw free press’

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Media figures speak out as Orbán’s party proposes penalising organisations that receive foreign fundingMore than 90 editors-in-chief and publishers from across Europe have signed a statement calling on the EU to take action over proposed legislation in…

The Great Grovel: How Trump forced elite institutions to bend to his will

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The lessons we can take from how easily institutions have folded to Trump’s remarkable revenge campaign.

The 9 AI power players at the Paris AI Action Summit

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Academics can be as influential as tech bros in swaying policymakers to both invest in and set guardrails for the powerful technology.

Paris AI summit: ‘Zero signatories’ from Big Tech on copyright charter

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One of the hoped outcomes of the AI summit which would be held in Paris on February 10-11 is a charter on copyright, a contentious issue that many creators have raised with the spread of AI technology, FRANCE 24 Technology Editor Peter O’Brien said. A…

Elon Musk trying to influence upcoming German election, Berlin says

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Tesla CEO causes political uproar in Germany for repeatedly endorsing the country’s far-right party.

Westminster’s top books of 2024

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POLITICO asked politicians and chroniclers of SW1 to tell us the book they most enjoyed reading this year — here are the results, in their own words.

As Trump sues, the free press braces

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First Amendment advocates worry about an emboldened Trump using civil litigation to target journalists he dislikes.

Europe’s press goes after Musk’s X

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Media organizations turns up the heat on X amid cries of ‘toxic’ content.

5 things to know about EU tech security chief Henna Virkkunen’s hearing

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Elon Musk and Europe’s tech gaps show the Finnish nominee has a major task at hand.

Far-right Jordan Bardella’s book publisher sues, alleging ad campaign was censored

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The 29-year-old National Rally leader’s book hits shelves on Saturday.

Breaking up with Google: Why the EU should back the US

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While Washington debates a break-up of the tech giant, Brussels should seize the opportunity to end the company’s monopoly over digital advertising — it may never get a better one.

Why the UK government’s love-in with Taylor Swift is coming to an end

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The music industry has cosied up to Britain’s new government. But relations could soon sour as ministers prepare to reform the rules protecting creative work from AI.

Europe’s privacy patrol is spoiling Big Tech’s AI party

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New leadership in Dublin has put the EU’s privacy regulators on a collision course with Big Tech.

Brexit chief Michael Gove to edit Tory bible The Spectator

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Former cabinet minister will take over on Oct. 4 while the Conservative leadership election is still ongoing.

Slovakia targets ‘wealthy’ book buyers with steep VAT rise

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Proposed rate increase to reduce public deficit derided by booksellers, publishers and pro-Russia groupsSlovakia’s populist government has announced plans to drastically raise value-added tax (VAT) on books to help fix its public finances, drawing cond…

Books are ‘mostly’ for rich people, Slovak government shrugs as it puts up VAT

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Government of PM Robert Fico is looking for ways to raise money to shrink budget deficit from 6 percent of GDP forecast for 2024.

Google scores surprise court win on EU antitrust fine

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Judges say the European Commission made errors in assessing the search giant’s advertising contracts with publishers.

Germany’s Scholz wants new EU anti-deforestation law delayed

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German media group has been lobbying against the rules.

Google uses anti-competitive advertising practices, UK authority finds

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Google’s anti-competitive advertising practices are harming UK publishers and advertisers, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found on Friday (6 September), amid similar investigations in the EU and US over the company’s monopolistic beha…

Decades after Germany’s reunification, views still differ on its cultural divide | Letter

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Ruth Strassl, born in West Germany, and John Green, who spent several years living in East Germany, respond to an article by Carolin WürfelCarolin Würfel expresses her disappointment about West Germans’ ignorance concerning East German writers (East Ge…

Donald and Melania Trump each promote a new book — separately

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The former first lady’s book will be her first memoir, and the former president’s book will have photos and commentary.

Polish media outlets protest ‘threat of domination’ by Big Tech

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Tweaks in copyright law means publishers can’t bargain better deals with Google, Facebook, local media warn.

Trump’s pollsters think they can spin any verdict in his favor

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The former president’s advisers and allies plan to situate any outcome within the same grievance narrative he’s been cultivating for years.

Angela Merkel’s little book of calm

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Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column. Pour yourself a glass of something chilled, put your feet up, and prepare to dive into a book by one of the great European leaders; someone who generates respect and even a little fear among even her fiercest rivals. And after you’ve read Liz Truss’ masterpiece, there’s an […]

As the media’s resources dwindle, it’ll only get harder to tell fact from fake

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Fewer checks and balances across most mainstream media groups mean an increasing threat of reputational damage.

Downing Street was ‘infested with fleas,’ Liz Truss says in new memoir

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Boris Johnson’s dog Dilyn may have been the cause, Truss charges in excerpts in the Daily Mail.

Kaja Kallas forced to dismiss viral April Fools’ NATO joke

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“Not true,” sighed Estonian prime minister.

Greek government survives no-confidence vote over deadly Tempi train trash

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Legislative drama was preceded by resignation of 2 ministers after allegedly carousing with a media mogul and sharing “wine, cigars and whiskey.”

Independent to take control of BuzzFeed and HuffPost in UK and Ireland

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Media companies to combine publishing and advertising platforms to target gen Z and millennialsThe Independent will take control of BuzzFeed and HuffPost in the UK and Ireland with the intention to create “Britain’s biggest publisher network for gen Z …

It’s a new day for media freedom in the EU — if it stands up to its autocrats

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The bloc’s ability to enforce its media rulebook hinges on reining in countries like Hungary and Slovakia.

EU lawmakers adopt media freedom law

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The new law will ban governments from going after journalists to reveal their sources by deploying spyware on their phones.

Google hit with €2.1B lawsuit from more than 30 European media companies

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The companies claim that they “incurred losses due to a less competitive market” because of Google’s advertising practices.

Google stops notifying publishers of ‘right to be forgotten’ removals from search results

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Move comes after Swedish court rules that informing webmasters about delisted content is breach of privacyGoogle has quietly stopped telling publishers when it has removed websites from its search results under European “right to be forgotten” rules af…

‘We didn’t expect this phenomenon to last’: France’s comic-book tradition is hitting new heights

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The market for bédé visual storytelling almost doubled over the course of the pandemic, but can the birthplace of Asterix continue to nurture creators?Like thousands of French people, Sylvie Pinault discovered comic books during the pandemic. Though ba…

Édouard Louis: ‘All my writing is political – and all my life is, too’

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Ten years on from his first, brutal autofiction about growing up gay in a working-class village, the French writer is a pillar of the literary world but still critical of his country. He talks about his new novel, being a class defector and how to take…

Microsoft CEO: Journalists should welcome AI

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The comments come as the New York Times takes legal action over Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s usage of its content.

Liz Truss urges David Cameron to get tough with China over ‘sham’ Jimmy Lai trial

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Britain’s ex-leader wants foreign secretary to go further in his statements on Hong Kong’s democracy trials.

Sculptor sues Swedish glassmaker for €1m in test of EU ‘bestseller clause’

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Landmark case over popular snowball candle holder design may open door to retrospective claims across blocOne of Sweden’s longest-established glassmakers is facing what could be a landmark legal challenge over €1m in royalties it has allegedly failed t…

EU negotiators reach agreement on media law to curb spying on reporters

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The European Media Freedom Act seeks to safeguard the independence of newsrooms and foster media pluralism.

Viktor Orbán brings culture war to Brussels

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Hungary backs media outlets that wage war on woke and bring a Euroskeptic take to the EU capital.

Axel Springer CEO calls for tariff-free democratic trade club against China and Russia

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Transatlantic democracies should form a tariff-free club that puts punitive duties on autocracies, Mathias Döpfner argues in a podcast.

Love, grieving, intimacy and enduring war: what is the role now for books and writers in Ukraine? | Charlotte Higgins

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The Lviv BookForum was vibrant this year, but still there is the backdrop of conflict and the need to find a place for storytellingLast year’s Lviv BookForum, a literary festival in the elegant western Ukrainian city, was mostly an online affair, held …

‘Hearing Russian brings me pain’: how war has changed Ukrainian literature

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Many writers and publishers have ditched Russian language in favour of Ukrainian in response to invasionVolodymyr Rafeyenko is a distinguished Ukrainian novelist. Ten years ago he wrote and published entirely in Russian. Born in Russian-speaking Donets…

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